The difference between dietary supplements and health products

Let’s get straight to the core conclusion: the full name of “health products” in the domestic official context is “health food”, which is a special food category strictly controlled by market supervision departments, while “dietary supplements” are the most mainstream branch category of health food. The essence of the two is the relationship between inclusion and being included.； However, if it is overseas "dietary supplements" in overseas shopping and cross-border e-commerce scenarios, most of them fall into the scope of ordinary food registration, which is several orders of magnitude lower than the intensity of domestic formal health care products with blue hats.

In the past two months, I helped my mother clear out the "maintenance inventory" that she had saved for half a year. Half of the dining table was filled to the brim, and she couldn't even tell what they were. They were all called "health products": there were calcium D soft capsules with blue caps printed on them bought at the drugstore, Acerola VC tablets marked "dietary supplements" bought in the live broadcast room, and fish oil brought back from the United States by distant relatives, with a big "Dietary" printed on the bottle. Supplement", she even mixed in the so-called "hypoglycemic bitter melon slices" given by the health center downstairs. At that time, she even criticized me: "Aren't they all taken to replenish the body? What are you doing so clearly? 」

The score is really clear, otherwise the probability of being trapped is really high. Don’t underestimate the blue hat logo printed on the upper left corner of the product package. This is the exclusive “ID card” for domestic health foods. To get this logo, companies must first pass several hurdles: the safety of raw materials must be toxicologically tested, and the claimed effects such as “enhancing immunity” and “supplementing vitamin A” must be functionally verified. The packaging must have a warning that “health food is not a drug and cannot replace drugs to treat diseases.” It can’t pass the review even one word short of it. Nowadays, the dietary supplements that you can see on the domestic market that have been formally declared have basically gone through the blue hat approval process. Most of their functions are to supplement basic nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, and dietary fiber. They are the category of blue hat health products with the widest audience and relatively low entry barriers.

But if you come across dietary supplements purchased overseas or labeled as "imported original", it's a completely different set of rules. For example, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s supervision of dietary supplements adopts the logic of “post-market accountability”—as long as the raw materials you use fall into the category of “generally recognized as safe,” you can sell them directly on the market without efficacy verification. Only when complaints are received after sales and problems are found, will they be stopped. In the past two years, there have been a lot of news that the actual measured content of melatonin purchased overseas was 3-10 times the labeled value. This is because of loose supervision and manufacturers adding ingredients indiscriminately without anyone checking in advance. This is why many people say that overseas supplements are "stronger". It's not that foreign formulas are more powerful, it's that no one can check the content for you in advance.

Speaking of which, the controversy in this field is really not small. Friends I know in the nutrition circle are basically divided into two groups: one group is a firm believer in "food supplements come first". They believe that as long as you have a balanced daily diet, eat enough meat, eggs, vegetables, milk and grains, and have a regular work and rest schedule, there is no need to supplement any additional products. Whether they are called health products or dietary supplements, they are all IQ taxes for making anxious money.； The other group is more pragmatic. They feel that nowadays young people only eat takeout, old people have bad teeth and cannot eat vegetables, and office workers work from 9 to 5 and have no time to bask in the sun. If certain nutrients are missing, they are missing. When dietary supplements cannot make up for them, it is quite convenient to take regular supplements. My previous physical examination showed that I was deficient in vitamin D. The doctor directly prescribed a box of D3 drops with a blue cap. To put it bluntly, it is a dietary supplement type of health product. After taking it for three months, I went back to the normal range for a review and there were no side effects.

The most annoying thing is that many merchants deliberately confuse these two concepts to cut leeks. They are ordinary tablet candies that don't even have blue hats. They dare to label them as "natural dietary supplements" and then turn around and tout them as "high-end health products" that can resist oxidation, anti-aging, and even lower blood pressure and blood sugar. They sell them at several times the price of regular products. They focus on the information gap to deceive middle-aged and elderly people. My mother almost spent 3,000 yuan to buy a set of so-called "nano selenium supplements", which were said to be able to cure her arthritis. Fortunately, I stopped her. Later, I checked and found that they were just ordinary food, not even a blue hat.

In fact, ordinary consumers really don’t have to worry about the definitions of these two terms. No matter what the merchants are boasting about, you first need to check whether there is a blue hat on the package. If there is, it is a regular domestic health food, and its efficacy has been verified.； If you’re shopping overseas, check the brand’s reputation and third-party testing reports. If it says it can cure diseases, just block it no matter what it’s called. After all, whether it is dietary supplements or health products, they are essentially supplements to the diet. If you are really sick, you should take medicine. Don't expect to solve the problem by taking these.